How to plan the most cost-efficient approach?
Two major budget decisions an organisation will need to make for each project are: • Should external help such as a technology vendor be used? • What type of a technology platform should be used (commercial vs. open source applications, and locally installed applications vs. hiring an application as a service)? It is possible to run a mobile advocacy campaign without external help, even if you have no previous experience. Online bulk SMS services are often easy to use – see the ‘how to’ on How to use and manage bulk SMS services using a website . However, if you are using any other systems it is often cheaper to contract a service provider to provide advice and technical capacity and allow staff to focus on core work such as general campaign management. If mobile projects are going to become an integral part of your organisation’s strategy, running the campaigns yourselves would reduce costs in the long term by building internal capacity. A good way to start is to ask an initial vendor
